The Sniper
by AnEmptyInside
Summary: Set in modern times. Naruto is a sniper in a war between the land of Fire and the land of Sound. T for language and blood. Could be changed later. First chapter is fairly short, later chapters will more likely be longer.
1. Chapter 1

It was a cold, dark night. The wind was blowing softly, creating a quiet woosh as it moved through the streets and alleys of the dilapidated buildings, cracked and looking as though made of sand, with simple square holes for "windows". The place had several waves of foul smells to tell of.

Naruto knew it was risky to be having a smoke. All was dark except for his cigarette. His M200 Cheytac Intervention lay beside him. Sure enough, a shot cracked right into the roof on which Naruto lay. He quickly put out the cigarette and grabbed his rifle. He rolled behind the huge billboard that spanned most of the side of the roof he was on to give him some cover, just as another shot cracked by. He should've been paying more attention. Now he was locked in a battle with another sniper. He made sure there was a shot loaded into his Intervention. He went to the other side of the billboard and scanned for a bit with his scope. He saw the sniper across the street on another building, and quickly ducked back as a bright flash and sound sped by right where his head was.

The other sniper was a good shot, it seemed. Naruto attempted to countersnipe. He quickly poked his head out, took a shot, and ducked back only to avoid another bright flash, accompanied by the same sound. Naruto then decided put his helmet on his rifle and stuck it barely out past the edge of the billboard. The other sniper quickly shot, and the helmet flew back quite a ways. Naruto waited for several seconds, not wanting to take the possibility of the sniper seeing through his bluff.

After a few deep breaths Naruto poked his actual head out again with his sniper. He got into his scope, and saw the other sniper had relaxed.

The plan had worked. Naruto remembered he hadn't bolted the M200 yet, and did so. He then pulled the trigger, and a shot rang out as the other sniper fell over, blood oozing from where the bullet had entered, right in the head. Now, he would wait for the inevitable search team sent out for him, and they would be dead as well. He was given orders to just scout out the layout of the dusty village, but he was just forced to shoot his rifle. They'd surely send out teams to check out the sounds of the shots. Naruto bolted the Intervention. He had shot twice, so his current clip still had 5 shots left, and he'd two spare clips after that. 19 shots. Hopefully, they wouldn't send beyond 19 people scanning for him. And that was assuming every shot he made was a one shot, one kill.

Naruto made a brief scan of the street to make sure there weren't any scouts there who could relay his exact location. He found a old civilian woman, and that was it. It was odd that an old lady would be out this late. She was looking right at him. Naruto decided to take another smoke, behind the billboard this time. He would simply wait to hear the sound of a motorized vehicle, rather than risk his head scouting for it every few minutes.

It was not but maybe five minutes or so when Naruto heard the familiar sound of several trucks that these guys used. He poked his head slightly out, and saw a tactical with a heavy machine gun mounted on the back, and a transport from which several guys had begun dismounting. He saw the old lady walking up to the tactical in front. She was talking to them, and pointing right at Naruto's roof.

"Shit…"

Naruto quickly took the most logical shot, going for center mass, and killed the civilian lady. She fell over in a useless heap, bloody. Naruto bolted and then shot the guy manning the 50 cal machine gun right in the head. Naruto bolted once again, and shot the driver, hitting him right in the neck. The entire crew of the forward truck was down. Now it was just the transport truck.

Naruto shifted his sights, and saw that there were still men getting out of the truck, with several scanning around the general area where the lady had been pointing, as only the men on the tactical got the exact location.

Naruto bolt and shot two guys that climbed out, and had to let the third climb out as he reloaded. He poked his head out again, and shot twice more, killing two more. There were only 10 men or so remaining. But then they found him, and started spraying bullets at his roof. He got hit in the arm almost right away. Naruto ducked back behind the billboard, looking at his arm. He wouldn't be able to use the sniper for a while. Examining his arm, he saw that there was no exit wound, indicating it had lodged in the bone. He used what limited medical supplies he had been given to patch it up and stop the bleeding.

So now he was down to his M9 pistol. He shifted to the other end of the billboard, and poked his head out with his one arm and M9. He saw the group of 10 or so, and shot several shots. He downed one, and then another violent wave of bullets erupted and he quickly ducked back behind the billboard. The part of the roof he was just behind, the rising all around the square roof, seemed to be almost instantly vaporized. The wave of bullets was constant, unending. As they started shooting randomly through the billboard, nearly hitting Naruto several times, Naruto went off the roof down to the second floor of the three story building. The second story had several windows from which he could peer out of. He saw they were still spraying at the roof.

He took some more shots with his M9, dropping two and reloading before they caught on. They were clearly untrained, considering he wasn't hit again and managed to kill another before he went back to cover. Their guns were tearing the walls out incredibly quickly, and were definitely AK-47's judging from the firing sound. 6 of them left. They didn't stop shooting. This time they all seemed to reloading at the same time, since the shooting completely stopped. Naruto quickly took this chance and looked out the window, shooting more shots. He killed two more, and they then started shooting again. Naruto went to the first floor, and planted two M18A1 Claymore mines, one at the front entrance, and one at the back. He reloaded his M9 again. He had one spare mag left. It would be more than enough. He heard his two claymores go off. Two left. He went back up to the second floor of his building, and waited for the remaining two to ascend the staircase. One did, and Naruto shot him right in the head three times almost immediately. There was no questioning that he was dead. Naruto quickly turned around and jumped out of the second floor window, making a rather hard landing with a grunting noise, and ran through the front entrance of the building.

The last man must have been panicking, 'cause he didn't hear Naruto. Naruto grabbed him from behind, used both hands to grab his head, and snapped his neck.

Naruto headed to his extraction point. He was almost half an hour late, but surely his slaughtering of this many men compensated for it. His country, the country of fire, was at war with Orochimaru's small country of Sound. It had been going on for almost a year now. "Orochimaru's military is weak, morale is low, their tech is weaker, they are fewer in number. They will be crushed in a few months." That was what their forces were told. The only one that was true was the second. But it was their land, their territory. It was difficult to fight in a place not your own against a clever and cunning enemy. Naruto reached the extraction chopper.

"What took you so damn long? There were several gunshots off from where you came from. And you have a shot arm," asked the pilot.

"I took a small detour."

"Most "small" detours don't involve returning with half the ammo you were given and a shot and bandaged arm."

"Just get me out of here. I'm tired of this damn place."

And so they took off. Naruto decided to crash on the chopper. He could fairly easily sleep even despite the noise, it was something he was used to.

They got back to the base fairly quickly, waking Naruto quicker than he had hoped for.

"Why so damn fast…" he grumbled.

"This base is only a few miles out from where you were operating. You were told this before," responded the pilot. "See the commanding officer. He is expecting you. Just expect him to bitch at you."

"For what?"

"He always finds something."

Naruto trekked past the several tents and ammo boxes and working out soldiers in their white tank tops stained with sweat, and went to the biggest tent with a flag bearing the sign of the leaf raised tall and high. He entered.

Sure enough, the commanding officer found quite a bit to complain about.

"So, on top of breaking orders to just go scouting, you killed a civilian, delayed the chopper nearly half an hour, got your arm shot, and attracted unnecessary attention."

"And killed several guys."

"You were just supposed to scout. But oh, no, you professional sniper guys, you have to fucking show off and shoot everything that breathes and isn't on your side. Your weapons were given to you for self defense, not so you could go waving your dick around in Orochimaru's territory."

"Funny how you mention waving ones dick around, when your tent here has all the air conditioning, the huge flag, and is, in general, the biggest tent on this base."

"You were just supposed to scout. Are the definition of the words "just" and "scout" foreign to you?"

"Weapons are for killing people. That's what I did. Besides, the civilian was revealing my location. It was either shoot or lose what little surprise I had. I wasn't told there would be snipers scanning that weren't me, either."

"Well, since you're so high and mighty, you should have been expecting such a scenario," spat the CO.

Naruto wiped the spit off his face. It would be so easy to just make this guy eat his own teeth and drink his own blood, then piss in his mouth. But he couldn't do that.

"It still doesn't change the fact that 17 of them are dead, and you didn't suffer a single casualty."

"Naruto, you're dismissed," came another voice. It was one Naruto would much more gladly hear.

"Thank you, Asuma. I will gladly take my leave. I need to get this wound taken care of, anyway."

The CO turned in a fit of rage on Asuma as Naruto exited the tent and went to the doctors tent, marked with a red cross in a white circle.

The doctor could take the bullet out without complications. He repatched the wound, and let Naruto go. Naruto went back to his own tent, marked Tent D. None of the other people who also slept in this tent were there. Naruto crashed on his bed, this time for much longer.


	2. Chapter 2

Authors note: From now on, I will be putting certain things in italics and bold and then a number next to it. What these things are will be defined at the bottom for those inexperienced with technology of war.

The sun brightly sliced through the small opening in Tent D, right onto Naruto's closed eyes. That wasn't what woke him, though.

Another man walked into the tent, wearing the typical outdoor white tank tops and baggy camo shorts. He looked upon Naruto.

"And you have the right to call me lazy?" he said.

Naruto kept on snoring.

The man repeated this time, only much more loudly.

Naruto grumbled for a start.

"Shika, I just got back, man…" he moaned.

"You got back several hours ago. I saw you walk into the _**CO's**_(1) tent. Get up." Shikamaru said imperiously.

Naruto let a few more groans escape him as he got out of his bunk.

"You've got another op to run, only this time I'll be with you. The CO seemed to cringe with a deep, agonizing hatred every time he spoke of your name. I take it you already got in trouble with him?"

"Quite a bit of trouble for doing him a favor," Naruto said, rather tonelessly. "At least I got the scouting done, and killed a few guys on top of that."

"You actually had the balls to take a group on your own?" Shikamaru jokingly said, receiving dark glares from Naruto. In a more serious tone, he asked "How many?"

"Not many. Somewhere around 20. Too tired to remember the exact number."

"Well, we need to get our gear on and get on the chopper in half an hour. We're just scouting out the enemies general activity in the area. I'll be your _**spotter**__ (2)_, and you'll have an _**Intervention (3)**_ just in case. Just like last time, however, you aren't supposed to shoot unless forced into it." The thought to taunt Naruto about last nights incident crossed Shikamaru's mind, but he decided against it.

And so, half an hour later, Naruto and Shikamaru were boarding the chopper and being flown to the outskirts of the town Naruto had scouted on the previous night. They would walk the rest of the way in.

Naruto made sure his Intervention was loaded. He actually got a _**suppressor (4)**_ this time. The CO was probably expecting him to shoot, but Shikamaru's _**M4A1 Carbine**_ _**(5),**_ which was strapped to his back, was suppressed as well. Perhaps they were expected to run into resistance. Shikamaru had his binoculars for spotting draped loosely around his neck, his helmet strapped to his neck and hanging behind his head over his pack.

Naruto already had his helmet on.

"You're too cautious about stray bullets hitting this thing at such a perfect angle they will hit your head, man," Shikamaru stated.

"I so wish you got shot in the head as you were saying that," retorted Naruto.

The chopper touched down. They got out of it, and looked back into the dusty town Naruto had scouted to night before. As they walked a couple blocks in, Shikamaru looked up and saw a 3-story building with a huge billboard that was filled with holes.

"Was that where you were hiding up, by any chance?"

"Yes, it was," Naruto said, rather stiffly. Clearly, his ears were still ringing from the hollering the CO did.

All the dead bodies were gone. They climbed up to the roof of the building where the sniper Naruto shot was hiding. The snipers body was still there. Naruto found an unbitten sandwich in his pocket. Ham. The man had _**dogtags (6)**_.

"Why are we up here," asked Shikamaru.

"Because I feel like it," responded the other.

They went passed several more houses that all looked the exact same, dusty, square holes for windows, color of sand, seemingly desolate. The place was marked by all the same tans and browns, all the same foul smells Naruto had smelt last night. They found the building they were going to look around from. It was similar to the one Naruto had been shooting from the previous night. They climbed the three stories, and up to the roof. It had a billboard on it once again. Naruto and Shikamaru set up here.

From up here, they could see how many patrols they had narrowly dodged on account of Naruto's dilly dallying.

"Looks like they just patrol through here all day…how boring," Shikamaru noted with a yawn.

"Yawning already?"

"Oh, excuse me if this is too fun and exciting for me. I'm quaking in my boots right now from how much my heart is pounding. I don't know if I can take it much longer. I might wet myself."

Naruto was not amused by the sarcastic comment. But then they saw something…civilians being beaten up.

Shikamaru knew Naruto had a thing about innocents being bullied by the strong.

The beating turned to shooting. There was a group of 5 of Orochimaru's militiamen beating on a group of 3 civilians. 1 of them was shot to death.

Shikamaru saw Naruto's index finger come awfully close to pulling the trigger on his Intervention.

"Naruto! Don't!"

Naruto's finger didn't come any farther from the trigger.

The other two were dragged inside the nearest building. Orochimaru's men apparently found amusement in torture.

"I've counted at least 60 of them by looking around, Naruto. We can't afford to shoot now."

"Really now? I think otherwise," said Naruto in an angry tone. "Shikamaru. Give me your M4. I'll give you my sniper. I'll circle around, kill the 5 in that building, draw their attention. I want you to hold fire until I ask for support. If things get too hot, you're backing off." He didn't even tell him "I want you to back off."

Shikamaru could see that if he didn't comply, then Naruto would just start shooting with his sniper and they'd be stuck with no plan. He complied and gave Naruto his M4.

Naruto quickly went down the three-story building as Shikamaru set up with his sniper. He hated it when Naruto did this. He was well aware what Orochimaru's men were doing, but Naruto might get himself killed.

He could see Naruto dodging the patrols heading for the building the civilians were in. Naruto reached the building. Shikamaru watched as Naruto poked his head through a window with his silenced M4, and started shooting shots.

"Don't shoot yet, Shikamaru."

Shikamaru sweat slightly as he saw some patrols getting closer and closer to Naruto's house. He saw a suppressor poke back out the window, and began shooting at the two patrols nearest. There were 5 men per patrol. All 10 men in the two patrols died quickly.

Naruto was good at this.

This attracted the attention of some of the other patrols. They went into the building and checked it out, but did not shoot. Weren't the civilians there?

Shikamaru asked this over the radio.

Naruto said he had told them to play dead and cover themselves with the blood of the men he had shot. Apparently they had complied, and it had worked.

Shikamaru could see Naruto quickly coming out of the backside of the building and working towards the nearest building. He got inside.

"Naruto, I saw a patrol go into the civilian building. 5 guys, as usual. Looks like all the other patrols are scattering. Two guys are coming to check out your building."

The two guys entered the building Naruto was in. A few seconds later, Naruto radioed in that they were both dead and he fine. The patrol checking out the building the civilians were in came out, and Naruto gunned down all 5 men.

Naruto moved a little. But then Shikamaru saw something. One of them had climbed into a small tower with an RPG.

"Naruto! RPG to your left in the tower!"

Naruto turned around and shot the RPG guy right in the head, but not before he shot off a rocket. The fact that Naruto killed him before he could take proper aim caused the rocket to land a fair distance away and only knock Naruto to the ground. But some guys were converging on Naruto. And he was right out in a street, near another building. Shikamaru saw that the building had two sides, a door to the front, and a door to the left side of the building, leading to an alley, leading to another building.

Naruto's vision was shaky. His ears were ringing, and he was seeing doubles. As he looked up, he could see three men charging at him and shooting. They were poor shots. Their bullets were biting into the ground around him. But Naruto still had some sense.

"Shikamaru, commence firing."

Two of the three men dropped in one shot. The other one dropped soon afterwards. All 3 were headshots.

Naruto was still shocked a little, but he managed to get into the nearest building. He turned around and started shooting, and several guys that had saw him and began chasing him dropped to the floor.

"Shikamaru, watch the right entrance to this building."

Shikamaru was already doing so, and was dropping anyone who tried to flank Naruto like flies.

"Naruto, I'm reloading. There's doorway to your right leads to an alley, and into another building. Go there."

Naruto wasted no time. He was in that building just as Shikamaru finished reloading. Shikamaru started shooting at the guys chasing Naruto, but there were so many. Shikamaru eventually stopped going for the head and just focused on shooting as many shots as possible; there were so many that he couldn't miss. But there was still quite a bit of a crowd that got past Shikamaru's wave of bullets. Shikamaru heard a "click" and an explosion, and several dudes that were crowded in the doorway were, for all intents and purposes, sawed in half by the _**M18A1 Claymore (7)**_. Naruto shot some more of them down with his M4, and then ran up to the second floor of the building and then jumped out, running across another street.

"Naruto. Be advised I can't see you anymore. I'll shoot the guys chasing you, but if you run any farther out, no more sniping support.

"Copy."

Shikamaru pumped bullet after bullet out of the Intervention, but then heard a strange sound coming from behind. It was a man screaming. Shikamaru turned around and saw one of the militia men charging at him with a hatchet, but Shikamaru dodged his strike easily. Shikamaru used his free hand to grab the dudes jaw to hold his head steady, and plunged his knife right into the mans eye. Blood squirted from the eye as the knife pierced through, going into the brain. He was dead. Shikamaru pulled the knife out, and flicked some of the blood off, returning the knife to its sheaf. He returned to shooting the guys that were chasing Naruto. Naruto came back all the way around to the building with the civilians in it so Shikamaru could continue shooting. Shikamaru could see the pursuing crowd chasing had significantly thinned.

Naruto planted 2 more claymores, which was all he had remaining. One clicked and exploded, the crowd advanced a little, the other clicked and exploded, and then Naruto threw a grenade to produce much the same effect as the crowd advanced a little more. Shikamaru was sniping the guys in the back, and Naruto was gunning down the man in front. Shikamaru ran out of ammo. Naruto radioed that he himself was out, and pulled out his sidearm and started shooting. There were only three left, however, and they were all dropped.

Shikamaru breathed heavy breaths. They had lived. Naruto was coming out of the building the civilians were in. Shikamaru could hear the chat over the radio.

"You're free to go now," was all Naruto said.

They thanked him in return and walked off.

Seemed a tad light considering they just slaughtered 60+ people to save them, but apparently Naruto wanted nothing beyond the knowledge he had done something.

"Get down here, Shika. We're going back to the chopper and going home."

They reached the chopper, once again half an hour late. The pilot chuckled as they boarded the chopper without ammo in their guns, but asked no questions, and went off into the sunset back towards the base.

CO: Commanding Officer.

Spotter: Snipers usually work in pairs, one sniping and one spotting for the sniper.

Intervention: The Intervention is an American bolt-action sniper rifle used for soft target interdiction at long range. It has a detachable 7-round magazine. It fires .408 CheyTac and .375 CheyTac rounds.

Suppressor: An attachment that looks like a black cylinder with a hole in the middle screwed into the barrel of a gun. It reduces muzzle flash. Contrary to popular belief, suppressors' silencing effects are rather minimal.

M4A1 Carbine: The Carbine is an Assault Rifle that fires 5.56 ammunition. It is primarily issued to units who see close combat often or tank crews and the like who need a weapon smaller than the large and unwieldy M16. It is, for all intents and purposes, a shortened M16.

Dogtags: Dogtags are given to soldiers to identify who they are when they die for various reasons.

M18A1 Claymore: An anti-personal mine that fires several steel balls strapped to an explosive block.


	3. Chapter 3

The CO looked upon Naruto and Shikamaru. It was a look Naruto couldn't figure out. It looked shrewd and calculating. The CO kept looking down at the action report, and back up at Naruto and Shikamaru, and back down at the action report. It was making Naruto uncomfortable. No bitching or anything was emitting from his mouth.

He opened his mouth to speak, but no words came out, and he closed it again. He kept looking back and forth with that weird look.

"…Are these numbers correct," he finally spoke. "60+ enemy casualties with no dead civilians caused by our forces…and no injuries to you two?"

"…Yes, sir. Those are correct," Naruto said.

Shikamaru was fidgeting nervously.

"…You ask me to believe two people armed with nothing but a sniper and a carbine managed this? 60 kills?"

"Yes," Naruto said. He was still nervous about the strangely quiet tone the CO was keeping. Even the CO seemed to be made uncomfortable by this.

"Well…under normal circumstances, punishment would be warranted."

Naruto wondered what "normal" circumstances were in this mans eyes.

"But trading 60 kills for no casualties, and on top of that receiving at least some positive light in the civilian's eyes…"

Naruto didn't dare to believe it.

"Most peculiar. This changes the plan to secure our foothold into the Sound Country entirely."

They had been fighting the Sound forces for a year, but three fourths of that year had been pushing Orochimaru's initial wave of forces back. The Wind Country had sided with Sound, making the issue worse. The Wind had surrendered when Sound was pushed out, but Sound continued to fight. This time, it was Fire hunting Sound, in Sound territory. It was proving difficult. Casualties had been mounting throughout the remaining one forth of the previous year. And they hadn't even secured a foothold into the Sound.

This village was to be that foothold. Recon missions performed earlier revealed that this village was particularly poorly defended, and Naruto's earlier ops had revealed the men there were poorly trained. Naruto had been performing recon to give the CO a rough feel of the village, which was why he was there for those previous two ops. There had been several calls from command to just go and take the village. It was the weakest point in the Sound Country, and would probably be easy to crack. But the CO had liked being safe up until now.

"Sir?"

"We will attack the village head on tomorrow, as soon as our limited forces are mobilized. You two will be providing sniper support."

Naruto didn't think his actions would advance plans by a whole week, possibly two.

The base only had a small number of troops, probably somewhere about 40-50 men, and had been waiting for reinforcements. But Naruto and Shikamaru had just killed 60+. Perhaps the CO thought that if two men could manage this, surely they could take the village with much ease. Shikamaru clearly didn't like throwing himself headfirst into such danger again.

It was clear Shikamaru was going to voice his concerns right then, but Naruto quickly silenced him with a wave of his hand. They didn't need to get the CO started on a yelling streak.

The CO laid out a simple plan. They had 4 teams of ten set up, and then a team of ten to keep guard at the base. One team would be dropped at one corner of the village, another at another corner, etc. They would simply sweep the whole village, every street, every alley, every building, of Orochimaru's soldiers working from outside in, with Shikamaru and Naruto providing sniper cover.

Asuma walked in just then. He requested that the remainder of Naruto's sniper unit be there as well. The rest of the unit would be providing sniper cover as well.

The CO surprisingly agreed.

It had been awhile since the whole entire sniper group consisting of six soldiers, three teams of two, including Naruto and Shika (who formed one of the teams), had been assembled to perform an operation as one unit, the whole entire "D-Tent". They had racked up some fame within the ranks, they were people that were wanted as sniper cover. The three teams were commonly combined to increase their capabilities. The individual teams consisted of: Naruto and Shikamaru, Sasuke and Kiba, and finally Tenten and Neji. Tenten had been the first female in a highly advanced sniper unit. The individual teams rarely went solo operations except for recon, usually two of the three teams or all three were combined. So all six knew each other fairly well. Even duck-ass hair Sasuke got along decently with them.

The CO still continued to look at the report nervously, and then back up at Naruto and Shikamaru. Naruto suddenly understood the possible meaning of the look. The way the CO was nervously looking at the numbers and then back up gave Naruto an almost "how can these guys be human" impression.

When the briefing was done, Naruto and Shikamaru turned to leave, but as they neared the opening in the tent, the CO called Naruto back.

"Sir?"

Naruto was nervous. Maybe the CO was going to start yelling.

"As I said before, I would normally punish you. But this time I am making an inquiry of character. Why would you, knowing it was just you and one other person, take on 60 people just to save two civilians?"

"That is much too personal of a question."

The CO clearly didn't like that answer. But he didn't complain about Naruto's response.

"I see." That was all he could say.

"This story is for another time. I do plan on telling you eventually," Naruto said.

"Hm. Then I suppose you are free to go."

Naruto walked out the tent, but not before the CO told him he was holding him up to that statement.

Shikamaru came out to meet him.

"What did the CO want to talk to you about?"

"He asked me why I put myself against such odds to save two lives."

Shikamaru was the only other person on the base who knew why Naruto was so irked by such displays of power. Whenever asked about it, he would respond similarly to Naruto. It's just a story for another time.

"Well, the rest of D-Tent has been summoned to the base. Looks like we'll be operating as one team for this next one," Shikamaru said.

"Yeah," was all Naruto had said.

The simple question the CO had asked was obviously bringing memories. Shikamaru hated it when Naruto went all depressed like this. His eyes seemed to lose all shine and life, and he would keep spacing out into unknown thoughts.

"Naruto?"

No answer.

"Naruto!" Shikamaru gave Naruto a good smack on the back.

Naruto seemed barely phased by it.

"Yeah," was all Naruto said again.

"Jesus. I give up. I'm gonna go take a snooze while I still can." Shikamaru walked off the tent.

Naruto sat on a box next to their tent, on the outside. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a bullet. It was 5.56 mm bullet. Inscribed around it was "Remember 2013" (this story takes place in the year 2014). Naruto twirled the bullet between his fingers, looking grimly upon it. Naruto had taken the bullet out of the ammo belt for his _**SAW (1) **_at the time. That was before he was in the sniper division. Naruto had taken the bullet home and inscribed "Remember 2013" on it. Indeed, it was a year worth remembering.

There was always a deep, scathing voice in the back of his head. It seemed to speak to him every time he saw something like that…power being used to abuse the weak.

All the voice ever said was "Massacre". But that was a word Naruto needed no explaining for.

It deeply irked Naruto every time he heard it.

Naruto sat there twirling the bullet for what must have been 20 minutes before a loud, raucous voice shook the silence.

"Hey! Stupid bastard!"

Naruto continued to twirl the bullet, oblivious to Kiba's words.

Kiba pulled his M9 out, put the barrel of his M9 near Naruto's ear, and fired.

The bullet did the trick in an unexpected way.

Naruto jumped and screamed. This surprised Kiba.

"You alright, man?"

"Yes…just fine, Kiba." Naruto seemed to recover his wits.

"'Fine' people don't jump up screaming like that when they got surprised. You sounded like you were raging about something."

"It's nothing you need concern yourself with."

Kiba sat on the box next to Naruto, wearing the same white tank top with camo shorts that Naruto was.

"What were you thinkin' about?"

"I was contemplating how loudly you were gonna yelp if I shoved this bullet straight in your eye," Naruto sarcastically jived.

"Feh! Forget I asked, then. You and Shika were always the slowest in hand-to-hand."

Naruto pocketed the bullet. He kept it with him wherever he went.

"Kiba."

"Yeah?"

"Do you even know why you are sitting on this box next to me, right now?"

Naruto was jiving Kiba. He may be slower in hand-to-hand, but he enjoyed flaunting his superior intellect.

Predictably, Kiba said no.

A sigh that was not Naruto's nor Kiba's was heard.

"We're here because the CO pushed the plan ahead a week."

"Sasuke? It's awfully rude to eavesdrop," Kiba said.

"It's awfully rude to attract attention by shooting near some ones ear with an M9, but hey, you don't see me talking about it."

Kiba growled and went off to wake Shikamaru up with his loud voice.

"You still thinking about that, Naruto?"

Naruto was dumbstruck by the question. Shikamaru was the only one who knew.

"You're gonna have to narrow it down beyond "that", Sasuke. Quite a bit whirls around in my head."

Sasuke chuckled a little bit.

"C'mon, sitting on a box, twirling around a 5.56 mm round taken from a SAW belt for 20 minutes? Somethings on your mind."

"And how, exactly, do you know so much about this bullet?"

"'Remember 2013' inscribed on it. Shikamaru told me about 2013."

So that was how he knew.

"I see."

An M9 shot popped off from the tent. A few seconds later Kiba walked out. The shot had failed to wake Shikamaru.

"Well, operations begin tomorrow morning. Best to get sleep while we can."

"Right," Naruto replied. He and Sasuke went into the tent and crashed. Kiba walked in a few seconds later.

Neji and Tenten were late, and walked into the tent and into their respective beds long past when all the others were already sleeping.

The snoring emitting from Tent D, more specifically Kiba, was quite obnoxious.

Morning hit far too fast. Men scrambled for their gear. The snipers got their gear on. Naruto, Sasuke, and Tenten each grabbed Interventions. Shikamaru, Kiba, and Neji grabbed M4's, spotting gear, and extra Intervention mags if needed. They were on their humvee before anyone else was on their choppers.

The snipers took the humvee because it would be too obvious if they took choppers. The Humvees didn't drive all the way to their little sniping point, it drove roughly three-fourths of the way there, stopped, and they walked the rest. It was a little mountain that gave them a view of the whole village. The three teams spread themselves out throughout the mountain. It provided a nice, birds eye view of the village. They could see all of the rooftops and several of the streets. Naruto decided to have a little smoke.

The felt they trees shake as dust flew into their eyes. The _**Black Hawks (2)**_ carrying the troops passed overhead. There were six of them. Four carried the teams, one would hover in a circle over the village providing support, and the other was an emergency rescue team if the supporting Hawk got downed. The Hawks that were dropping in the troops would be in and out far too fast for any RPG teams to be mobilized, so it was only the supporting Hawk that was worried about.

Looking back with his scope, Naruto could see several ready _**Humvees (3)**_. They must've been the troops way out if things got too hairy.

The CO radioed in that they had managed to acquire an _**AH-6 Little Bird (4)**_ for air support if needed.

Just a minute later, the four Black Hawks were set up at their respective corners. Naruto could see the men _**rappelling**_ _**(5)**_ down through his scope. All the troops hit the ground in a flash.

The operation had officially begun. Naruto put his cigarette out.

The team at the north corner was almost immediately pinned by a heavy machinegun. Naruto almost immediately planted a bullet in the machinegunners brain. They didn't get another request to fire until maybe 5 minutes later. There were several RPG teams gathering at the roofs.

All three of the snipers started shooting, bolting, shooting, bolting. Despite all three snipers firing on the RPG teams ascending to the roofs, an RPG still managed to shoot up at the support Black Hawk. It missed. Naruto immediately shot the RPG'er as he was reaching to his buddy for another round. As the guy the RPG man was reaching for reached to pick up his RPG, Naruto quickly bolted and shot him too.

Soon the south corner team was requesting support. They were pinned by several machineguns.

"I'll have Tenten concentrate on them," Neji said.

"Copy," all the other snipers responded.

Slowly but surely the machine gunners were downed. The South corner team began working its way through again.

The supporting Black Hawk was still circling the village, firing its minigun whenever it could safely fire without hitting friendlies.

Things were going well for the West and East teams. Both teams were advancing fairly quickly throughout the village, and all resistance was quickly being gunned down.

Lee was a soldier in the west team. He was armed with a M249 SAW. The only other person in the group that Lee knew was Choji. Choji (just pretend he is a lot skinnier and more athletic) was armed with a M4. Lee and another LMG man he didn't know were most suppressing targets while Choji and the remainder of the team flanked and took them out.

The East team was doing things a lot differently, but was getting the job done at a roughly equal speed. They were sending two-man teams to sweep each building, met at the most convenient street, pushed on to the next few houses, and repeated.

But the North and South teams kept getting hampered by machine gunners and RPG teams. The Black Hawk flying above had taken to primarily firing on targets in the North and South sectors.

Soon, the East and West teams were at the center, waiting for North and South. They kept radioing in with inquiries about the hold up. The CO eventually responded to them telling them to hold down the center and wait for the North and South teams.

The snipers had split up the job. Naruto would focus on RPG teams, Sasuke would focus on the South sector, and Tenten on the North.

The South team eventually broke through to the center. It was just the North team now.

But the North team was reporting a hellish wave of bullets erupting from every direction. They had to group into a building and pop a colored smoke so the Black Hawk wouldn't shoot them. There were so many bullets flying that the mess was incomprehensible even to the Black Hawk, and it was just randomly shooting in various directions. North team reported two men hit.

The three snipers were kept massively busy. The three teams that had reached the center were barely encountering anything, whereas the North team was surrounded. They kept moving from building to building, but bullets and RPG's seemingly vaporized the buildings instantaneously. Every time they shot someone, it was like 5 men came to replace him.

The North team reported one dead now and two hit. They were down to just 7 able men, and requested the Little Bird.

"It's still being fueled, but I'll send it out as soon as possible. _**ETA (6) **_five minutes," the CO radioed in.

Gaara was leader of the North team. He wasn't happy about the "five minutes" thing.

"Sir, we are in shit so deep the sun is a foreign concept to us. We need that chopper in one! Refuel it faster, goddamnit!" Gaara was practically shouting as loud as he could into the radio.

"Five minutes is the fastest I can get it out there. You're gonna have to hold out."

"Then can you at least send a few people from the teams in the center to help us out with these five minutes," Gaara asked.

A few seconds later, the CO responded. "Three men. They're sending you three men now."

Three men. That was all they were getting.

"Why only three motherfucking men? They're not getting turned into swiss cheese over there!"

"There were reports of reinforcements converging on the west, south, and east sides of the village. They need a few men."

Half a minute, a destroyed building, and another moving to another building later, and the three men arrived.

The injured men were gonna end up dying like this.

They had gotten Lee, Choji, and the other LMG man.

Gaara tried to lay out a plan on the radio, but there was too much shit going on. He instead relayed the plan to the snipers, who only had their radios capable of receiving messages from three places: The CO, the teams, and the supporting Black Hawk. Naruto relayed the plan to the CO and Black Hawk.

"They want the Hawk focusing on all enemies to the north and east sides of them. They will focus on their southern and western flanks."

The CO gave the plan the OK.

The snipers plans didn't change, so they just focused on targets they deemed fit.

"Shikamaru, pass me some mags. I'm running low," Naruto said.

He got his mags.

The plan was making the volume of fire dealable with now that they were a little more organized, but the North team was still in deep shit.

"This is the longest five minutes of my fucking life," Gaara grumbled to himself.

There was still two minutes left on the clock.

Their new building was almost gone.

"You! Privates we just got over there," Gaara shouted to Lee and Choji. "Do you got any smoke grenades?"

They both did.

"Pop 'em and cover that street to the building over there! We need to get out of this building!"

Just as Gaara said that an RPG came flying over head and hit a wall, knocking them to the ground. Gaara was a little dazed, but not much.

"Pop that smoke!"

They did. The team got moving over to the next building. They had a man running with the colored smoke in hand so the Black Hawk didn't think they were still in the original building – which didn't exist anymore.

The Little Bird arrived. It started racking every building that didn't have a colored smoke in it with bullets and rockets.

Most of the AK fire was replaced with sounds of miniguns and rockets firing.

The Little Bird radioed in two minutes later. It had to go back and rearm.

But it had cleared out most of the enemies. The North team called a Humvee in to transport the wounded, the got moving again. They had sweeped out the stragglers before long.

The teams in the center had been holding fairly well. When the North team got there, there wasn't much to shoot at. When the reinforcements got pushed out, the teams went back through the village and made sure they killed every last man that wasn't a civilian. Gaara went up to a roof, and heard something, the sound of an RPG from the next roof. He whirled around and shot the man. There were no other of Orochimaru's men to be found.

The supporting Black Hawk report being hit, but still running. The CO told it to return to base, with the rescue Black Hawk following in case of emergency.

The operation was successful. Despite the risk of running in with 40 men rather than the expected 70, they had made it. They only lost one man and two wounded. It was an amazing success for them. It was rather quick, too. The whole thing happened in half an hour.

The snipers had killed a large number of men. The operation would've went to disaster if the Little Bird (which was provided as a last-minute bonus and originally wasn't part of the plan) wasn't there, but they had won.

The Fire Country won its foothold into Sound.

M249 SAW - Stands for Squad Automatic Weapon. It is an LMG which can accept 200-round belt magazines or 30 round STANAG's, and fires 5.56 rounds. It is lighter than an M60 but more powerful than an M16, and thus sees quite a bit of use.

UH-60 Black Hawk – The Black Hawk is a four-bladed, twin engine, medium-lift utility helicopter. They are capable of transport, and can have miniguns or LMG's mounted on the side for troop support.

Humvee – The High Mobility Multipurpose Wheeled Vehicle (HMMWV or Humvee) is a military 4WD motor vehicle and is used primarily for personnel or light cargo transport.

AH-6 Little Bird – The AH-6 is an attack variant of the MH-6 Little Bird. It is a single-engine light helicopter. It can use all sorts of rockets, missiles, and guns such as the GAU-19, a chaingun, or a minigun.

Rappeling – A rappel rope is a way to deliver chops from a chopper while in midair. The rope is simply suspended from the chopper and the troops slide down on it.

ETA – Estimated Time of Arrival.


	4. Chapter 4

It seemed ironic, how easy that foothold was to secure when they had been trying for three months. After the first few days they had the foothold, there had been mortar shells here and there striking, but no one ever get hit, and neither did anything important. The mortars eventually stopped.

A command tent was quickly set up in the outskirts of the village, and all the items such as beds in the tents were moved and set up in some of the stone buildings. The D-Tent got a whole 3-story building to themselves so they could quickly set up sniping positions in an emergency. It was, ironically, the same building Naruto had run his first op in. He rather liked not sleeping all cramped up, so it was fine by him.

They had buried all of Orochimaru's guys for some reason. They were proper burials too, not mass graves. Well, they buried all the men they didn't find scattered to pieces by the Little Bird, at least. It was a mess cleaning up some of the bits.

It was quite the opposite of what Naruto had expected. He was used to the Fire Countries army committing acts of brutality against its enemies. That SAW bullet was one he would never let go of.

Supply trucks quickly rolled in within the next couple weeks, and the village was quickly turning into a more proper military base, since it was the Fire's foothold into the Sound. A miniature airport was quickly built near the outskirts of the village, fairly close to the command tent. They had two AH-6's now. They got an extra Black Hawk, so now they had six of those. There were also a couple Humvees, as there had been a refueling and rearming station set up for ground vehicles as well. The base had to be quickly built up before Orochimaru could counter attack. There were fifty cal machine gun nests built on the roof of buildings (including the sniper teams' building) to give advanced suppression. Almost nothing was better at that than a fifty in a high place. They also got some reinforcement men with more on the way. Their numbers currently stood at 100 men.

The only thing Naruto hated so far was the lack of AC and windows. Dust kept blowing in through the windows while he was sleeping, and it was hot as hell. But he had been through worse in his training to be in the Sniper unit. All they had was a dinky little fan propped up, and the wind it blew was pitiful, to say the least.

"God damn, that fan is almost more annoying than anything else," Kiba whined as it passed him as it turned, only rustling his hair a little.

Indeed, it produced quite the obnoxious sound.

"Then hit it. Violence solves everything," Shikamaru sarcastically said. "If violence hasn't solved it yet, you aren't being violent enough."

Kiba looked just about ready to get up and wail on the tiny little fan.

"Perhaps violence could fix Kiba's pitifully low number of brain cells," Sasuke said.

"Perhaps violently shaving your head could fix that duck-ass you have there," Kiba retorted.

"Well, apparently the duck-ass thing is a chick magnet. So, in the end, I still win."

Neji was sitting there, silent. He was the only one who almost never talked.

When asked why, Tenten would answer for him. Something like: "Well, you guys can be rather obnoxious."

The fan kept making its weird sputtering noise all the while doing nothing at the same time.

It didn't help that the sun sliced ridiculously brightly through the windows. It could be almost blinding at times.

There were men outside playing some basketball. Apparently they had made a little half-court with white chalk and...who knows where they got the hoops from.

Asuma suddenly appeared in the Snipers little room.

"Naruto, there's been a little recruiting and training station set up for any civilians that want to join. There were two that particularly requested a "spiky blonde haired man with blue eyes," which I imagine is you, to help out. Our dudes at the tent need a real pro to show these guys how shit gets done. Wanna go?"

"I've not much to do with my time, so sure," Naruto replied. Better than sitting there listening to a fan sputter.

Naruto and Asuma walked to the recruiting station. The dried and hardened sand made a strange sound underfoot. Outside, the sun seemed even brighter. Naruto's eyes quickly adjusted, however.

They got there. The two people that wanted to join up were the civilians Naruto had earlier saved. When Naruto got up there, there was much shaking of hands and exchanged thank-you's.

"Alright," Asuma said as he walked up to the front of the crowd. There weren't very many people, maybe 10 or so. But they needed as many hands as they could get. Making a quick absent minded point at Naruto, Asuma said "Naruto here's gonna show you guys some of the ropes of this business. Naruto, get up here, and grab an M4."

Naruto did so.

"Describe what the M4 is to them, Naruto. Show them various parts of the gun."

Naruto walked up, and made sure the safety on his M4 was on. He didn't want to accidentally hit the trigger and shoot someone.

"Alright, this gun, known as the M4A1 Carbine, is a smaller and lighter version of the M16A2 rifle. It has a barrel length of 14.5 inches, and thus is very practical for close quarters. It weighs 6.9 pounds with its 30 round STANAG magazine loaded, 6.36 without. If you can't lift that, you are absolutely pathetic. It fires 5.56x45mm NATO rounds. It fires at a rate of 700-950 rounds/minute cyclic. This is fairly fast, and chews through these 30 round clips before you know it. Especially at long range, try to fire in short controlled bursts. This is what most of you will be using," Naruto said, showing them its magazine and round, and putting the magazine back in.

"Ok! Naruto here is gonna show you guys the basics of how to shoot."

Naruto walked up to the firing range as Asuma popped three targets up. He switched the safety off.

"You'll wanna always aim down your sights when shooting at something. You must aim and fire from a stable stance, typically crouching," Naruto said as he demonstrated the actions. "Then you just get your sight on target, and pull the trigger."

Naruto quickly shot the three targets. Asuma popped up another target, this time with plywood in front of it.

"Your bullets can pierce various thin materials. Keep this in mind."

Naruto shot at the target and hit it, demonstrating this.

"All right, Naruto. That should be enough," Asuma said. "So! Which of you maggots wants to try your hand at this first?" Asuma said. One of the civilians Naruto saved was quickly up there. Asuma handed him his rifle, and showed him the safety and that he always needed to have it off when not in combat. Asuma demonstrated this to the rest of the guys, too.

Asuma then handed the M4 to the civilian, with the safety on. The guy turned the safety off, and then walked up to the range. He aimed down his sight and crouched. Asuma popped various targets up, and he started shooting.

Naruto just noticed he had really weird purple tattoos on his face.

Naruto and Asuma observed as various other recruits tried their hand at this.

Asuma looked fairly concerned.

"Something bugging you?"

"We can teach these guys to shoot, but we sure as hell can't get them to be as good as our regular guys. If anyone dies off fairly quickly, it'll be these rookies," Asuma said.

"Well then, I guess you'll have to make your drills hard and fast," Naruto said. "If we can go fast enough, these guys will be good enough pretty soon."

"Eh. I doubt we can get through all those drills fast enough. But we may as well try. These guys are gonna have to learn the reality of things fast."

It was true. They needed as many hands as they could get in the case that Orochimaru counter-attacked. His military presence may have been weak in just this village, but everywhere else his army was strong.

Every now and then Asuma would walk up and make various corrections to the militiamen's style of aiming. One didn't have the stock all the way up against his shoulder, for some reason.

When all of them had a shot at the shooting range, Asuma decided to have some more things demonstrated, some very basic things.

Naruto walked up. "Alright, first we are gonna go over some things about reloading. You don't have to manually pull the clip out. There is a little release button that you can press, and then you can just shake the clip out. While doing this, reach into your pockets for a magazine and load it into your gun. Your reload will be much faster," Naurto said, showing them where the release button was located and how the whole thing worked out. "However, this typically won't make your reload fast enough if a guy surprises you as you're reloading. Thus, you have the pistol. Switching to it, if done right, it universally faster than reloading. Your gun will be suspended by a strap on you when dropped, usually suspending right at your chest. So you just drop your gun, reach into your pistol holster, and pull out your pistol, easy. Once again, if you can't do this, you are absolutely pathetic," Naruto said.

"Finally, your knife is even faster than your pistol. But it obviously can't go beyond the range the arm you're holding it in. This isn't CoD, you can't just magically slide across the ground at supersonic speed with your knife sticking out and kill someone. I like to have my knife strapped to my left shoulder, since I'm right handed. Make sure the handle of it is facing towards your face, you never want to have the blade of the knife going the same direction as your thumb. This makes for weaker stabs. The rest should be fairly obvious. Drop your gun, reach for knife, pull it out, and stabey stab stab. Also, make sure you always go for a lethal stab. Slice their neck, stab it into the base of their neck, even thrusting it into their eye works Don't try to stick it in non lethal-areas or areas with lots of bone. Your knife could get stuck. In the event this does happen, don't try to pull it out. This could cost you valuable time, and possibly your life.

"Alright Naruto, you can go now. I'll take the rest from here. Thanks for the help, too," Asuma said.

Naruto took his leave. He went back into the sniper tent, hearing the rumble of jeeps and the loud sounds of chopper rotors as he walked back. The base was still receiving supplies from the Fire. Naruto could see large shipments of weapons, grenades, and ammunition.

"So, how were the rookies," Kiba spitefully asked, almost as soon as Naruto walked in.

Kiba had a thing about inexperienced soldiers. He had strong reservations about their "getting in the way".

"All I did was watch 'em shoot. It's not like I know whether they're good or not."

Naruto lazily fell onto his bed. The fan was still making that goddamn sputtering noise.

Large amounts of dust were blown into their building as a Black Hawk flew off nearby. Kiba got a mouthful of the stuff. Must have been karma.

"That tasty, Kiba? It sure looks like it," Shikamaru jived.

"Jesus Christ, that was nasty," Kiba said as he gagged.

Kiba went off outside to get water to rinse the stuff out. They had installed water dispensers, as well.

Shikamaru was still chuckling about the whole affair.

Kiba came back, a look of deep disgust still on his face.

And then the sniper building fell back into its usual stupor, with no one talking and the fan sputtering.

"Jesus. Something needs to happen," Kiba said.

"I'm rather comfortable with this. Less moving around and stuffs," Shikamaru said.

"And this, Shikamaru, is why I have the right to call you lazy," Naruto said.

"Hey! I actually get up and moving when I need to."

"The revolvingness of you peoples conversations is rather funny," Tenten said with a slight giggle.

It was rather shocking whenever Tenten or Neji spoke outside of combat. When Naruto thought all the squad members new eachother fairly well, those two were known fairly well to be quiet all the time.

"More amazing is the stunned state they are put in by this," Sasuke remarked.

It was true, though. It seemed whenever all conversation dropped Shikamaru's laziness became the subject of discussion.

But then blaring alarms rang out. The snipers quickly grabbed their gear and headed up for the roof, with Shikamaru on the fifty. There were Tacticals rolling in spraying machine gun bullets everywhere. Shikamaru started spraying with the fifty. The snipers started shooting and bolting. The tacticals were quickly ripped up, and all men inside were quickly killed.

In five minutes the attack was over.

"You have to be fucking me. I thought something was gonna happen, man," Kiba said.

So the snipers and everyone else all went back to what they were doing before.

For the next few days these short, failures of attacks would continue. They didn't really except annoy the crap out of everybody. It was evident Orochimaru wasn't correctly estimating just how quickly the Fire could get a base built up.

Fire's foothold in the Sound was soon to start spreading. The first plan of action was to cut off supply routes from Wind to Sound. This meant quickly striking and occupying the borders of Sound that were used for trade. The Sound would be starved to death fighting, if need be.


End file.
